Trash

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT TRASH - PAGE 3

The Feb. 1 Morning Call story began this way: "Bethlehem residents fought hard last year to keep their own trash haulers… . " So why would Mayor Callahan open bids for a single hauler, when the residents of Bethlehem packed City Hall chambers and "many of whom trickled out into the hallway" and stood there past 1 a.m. to show their support to the current system? Now, the legality of this is being questioned. So assistant city solicitor Jennifer Doran wrote, "As such, the City of Bethlehem fully intends to award a contract for a single-hauler system in the event City Council adopts the appropriate ordinance.

OK, let's pretend you're a member of Bethlehem City Council. As part of his 2013 budget, Mayor John Callahan has proposed changing the city over to a single-hauler system for trash collection, an idea floated by Bethlehem leaders since, I don't know, maybe Count Zinzendorf. This proposal always is opposed by large, outspoken groups of independent haulers and other residents who intimidate council members into rejecting the idea in favor of continuing to let people choose their own trash collectors.

To the Editor: The photograph of Mesdames Reagan and Gorbachev and its accompanying text, headlined on your Dec. 10 issue, was more worthy of a supermarket-checkout scandal sheet than of a metropolitan newspaper. Manufacture of a profound personal dislike (between the first ladies) from conversation illustrative of differences in culture and background and from historical trivia serves no good purpose. Promulgation of such malicious back-fence gossip is in itself obnoxious; giving it one-third on the front page is in inexcusably bad taste.

WARRENTON, Georgia (CNN) -- Coach David Daniel's worried pacing along the sidelines of a recent game doesn't even begin to tell the story inside his mind. But the wound over his right eye gives you a sense of his pain inside, two weeks after he was caught in the middle of a post-game melee that sent him to a hospital. Some say he was intentionally targeted by the other team. Others say it was trash talking run amok -- including a text message by a coach -- all set against a raging high school football rivalry in rural Georgia.

To the Editor: My concern is our Mayor Daddona. We have problems in Allentown; does our mayor not see this? No, not from jogging or sitting in his office. Mayor Daddona should get in his car and drive along Allentown streets and look at a city of garbage strewn all over. Our taxes keep going up, but we don't see any improvements in our fair city. I have to work to keep up with my rent, which keeps going up because of the various tax increases. The garbage is not picked up, streets are unkept, drug dealings going on right under our noses, stabbings, shootings and neighbors that do not have any respect for the law. Parking all over the 400 block of Emery Street behind our home, that you can't get into your garage, when you want to. You want to have a nice yard and the rest of the neighbors don't care.

Residents of Upper Macungie Township who are using Raritan Valley trash services will have their trash collected on Wednesday rather than Tuesday. For information, call 877-534-4446 or visit the website at http://www.uppermac.org or http://www.raritandisposal.com.

On a 4-3 vote, Bethlehem City Council on Monday dumped Mayor John Callahan's proposal to hire a citywide garbage hauler, at least for 2013, and then trimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the budget to account for the trash fees and other revenue that council is not confident the city will get next year. As midnight neared, council had come up with enough cuts to roll back the property tax hike from 8.5 percent to 7 percent. That means the average taxpayer would pay an additional $49 instead of an additional $60. At the meeting, Callahan proposed to cut the tax hike even further than what council settled on. Council President Eric Evans said the trash proposal deserved serious discussion, and he didn't want to cram it in between November, when Callahan proposed it, and the budget's adoption in three days.

The Palmer Environmental Steering Committee is seeking public feedback regarding various trash and recycling options for the upcoming waste and recycling contract bid. The specifications for this bid will go out during the spring or summer of 2012, with the new contract beginning May 2013. While all ESC meetings are open to the public, the first hour of the next two meetings will have special information for Palmer residents on new collection technology, financial considerations, and other factors affecting the waste and recycling collection service in the township.

Mayor John Callahan wants to do next year what no mayor in Bethlehem has done before him — hire a single hauler to collect all the residential trash in the city. He argues it will save the average resident $110 a year, clean up the city, cut down on carbon emissions and provide $500,000 for next year's budget. It's part of his plan to close a $4.8 million budget gap in the $72.1 million budget he's proposed to council. But here's Callahan's challenge: residents have had the freedom to fashion their own contracts with private haulers for generations.